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Original poster

Amount of work at home (Y1) seems unrealistic

78 replies

ProzacDad · 15/01/2019 09:02

Just wondered what levels of homework people did. We're currently getting 20 spelling words a week with a test on Thursday. This includes (for example this week)

Sound, ground, pound, around, find, counter, eat, again, than

(All the "ound" ones are ok, he hits a roadblock when it changes to "find" for example but if we start with "find" he's ok and vice versa)

Now spelling isn't currently his forte and I'm literally pounding them into his head each week so that he can at least do the test. One week he got full marks, the next he completely fell apart and got 3/10.

20 is an awful lot of words to remember, and for Year 1 some of them are a bit much.

On top of this in order to achieve a Bronze certificate at Mathletics he needs to score over 1,000 points a week which in fairness he can do more or less by himself now but it's still another 30 minutes or so a day on that.

If that's what it is, I guess that's what it is but I feel like he (perhaps them all) are being put under a ton of pressure with all this rather than enjoying school. Perhaps it's ofsted driven, I really don't know.

Combined with other after school activities - swimming lessons, gymnastics etc I feel he's left with little time to do anything else (particularly weekdays).

Sorry for the long drawn post but I would just like to gauge other peoples experiecnes.

Thanks.

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Original poster
ProzacDad · 17/01/2019 22:55

One of my worries is he'll be "put in a box" if he doesn't do very well. Thanks to sats, I think in Y2 they get put into sets and once you're pigeon holed it might be difficult to move out.

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Youmadorwhat · 17/01/2019 23:03

My DD is in the equivalent of year 1 (although in Ireland and it’s quite different here!) and she gets reading every night, new words, and on Tuesday a maths sheet, on Thursday a writing sheet. No homework on fridays.

drspouse · 17/01/2019 23:10

I've never heard of sets in Y2.

DelurkingAJ · 17/01/2019 23:21

Y1 in an Outstanding Academy. DS reads six times a week (10 minutes), writes a sentence on which book he liked most, has a maths challenge fortnightly and learns four words a week (and puts them into a sentence).

20 words seems mad.

I loathe the projects. He doesn’t want to do them, DH and I refuse to do them for him (help, sure, do, no way) and it’s a pain.

DippyAvocado · 17/01/2019 23:32

There is no point sending home sets of words like sound ground pound. If they are teaching phonics effectively he will learn to sound these out himself. It's a waste of time to learn them by rote.

There are a list of common exception words for Year 1 which there is more point in practising as they are frequently used words that don't necessarily follow phonetic patterns they will have learned in Year 1.

20 spellings a week is too much for Year 1 anyway. I give my Year 3s 15 a week and they are the same set of words for several weeks with only a couple of new ones rotated in after they've had a few weeks learning the others. Learning one set of words for a week will not help them stay in their long-term memory.

roundaboutthetown · 18/01/2019 21:09

ProzacDad - surely the worry is he'll put himself "in a box" if you bore him rigid every week with pointless spellings for no apparent gain? How will that help him believe he doesn't belong in bottom sets forever? If he is not able to spell the words based on simple phonics rules, then he is trying to "learn" the spellings in the wrong way (ie by rote rather than by understanding the simple rules). Speak to the teacher, rather than fearing that cruel and unusual punishment each week is the way to avoid bottom sets! Once your ds matures a bit and starts "getting" phonics, he'll find most of the spellings quite easy and won't need to learn them all off by heart, he'll be able to hear how they should be spelt and only have to spend time working on the less regular words.

user1483972886 · 19/01/2019 13:51

Village primary Yr1 - 10 spellings a week, encouraged to read daily but no other homework (some online optional maths games).
Our friends at an outstanding primary in London have a much higher work load. Many parents doing an hour a day extra work with their child. Our friends daughter has already given up in yr3 because she is in stream 4 of 5 and feels stupid.
Our feel our school could do more but there should be a happy medium?

elliejjtiny · 22/01/2019 14:00

My son in year one gets a reading book for me to read to him. No spellings.

Original poster
ProzacDad · 23/01/2019 21:08

Mathletics i'd say is "semi optional", gymnastics is optional, reading is more or less not optional.

I wanted to gauge people's own experiences of workloads and amount of spellings in particular.

You're bang on as that's what I've done - I've basically picked the easiest/most similar from the 20 - and paired it down to 6 and added 3 more each day until we're at 14 words and the test is tomorrow.

It's "ow" this week and we're doing better than previous - although it would appear that the wheels can come off under test conditions!

I'll keep you updated :)

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qumquat · 23/01/2019 21:11

Way too much. Then we wonder why kids forget how to play and have terrible mental health. Dd is in reception and we just don't do most of the the homework. I plan to continue this strategy until at least Yr5.

blackteaplease · 23/01/2019 21:13

That seems a lot, we read every day. There are 3 discussion questions every Friday to consolidate weekly learning in school and optional maths and reading via bug club. That's it.

April2020mom · 23/01/2019 23:32

My stepdaughter is five years old.
I’m the one who gives her homework. However they are being completely unreasonable here. Right now I ask her some questions about the reading book of the week. Occasionally we sit down at the table and complete a math worksheet I created. Once a fortnight I do spelling words with her. That’s basically it.
Other subjects are not compulsory. I try and limit the amount of time spent on homework. A hour a week is enough. We are a homeschooling family. Is it possible to talk with the school about your concerns or not? Have you seen a copy of the homework policy? Request a meeting with the teacher first.
As a last ditch option consider pulling her out of school.

Original poster
ProzacDad · 24/01/2019 15:48

I'm meeting with the teacher next week, just for a chat - I'm not going in raging!

I will be asking questions about workloads etc, in particular this spelling "thing" as I honestly don't see any worth in it at all, my DS doesn't sometimes get upset with the constant rote learning of these words (as I say spelling doesn't come natural/easy to him at the moment) as he does struggle.

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Original poster
ProzacDad · 24/01/2019 19:18

To give you an idea, these are the spellings for this week by the way:

air, fair, pair, stairs, chairs, hair, flair, airbags, repair, airport, this, six, yellow, pretty, very, brown, stop, seven, fly, done

Are they comparable "difficulty" to what others get?

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Paddingtonthebear · 24/01/2019 21:08

LOL, no.

My DD (Y1) is in top group for English and this weeks spellings are things like house, children, don’t, little ..

Smith888 · 25/01/2019 09:56

Too much, and keep up the activities, assuming he enjoys them. Boys brains develop with movement.

Smith888 · 25/01/2019 10:00

Those spellings are focusing on double letter sounds. If your child can read words with those sounds (ai, ow, er, St) then I guess he can have a go at spelling them?

LetItGoToRuin · 25/01/2019 10:48

If ‘air’ has been covered in class, the ‘air’ words ought to be straightforward and shouldn’t need to be learnt by rote, as the remainder of the word is all very obvious by the sound of the word.

Can your DS attempt these by himself once he is familiar with ‘air’?

How is his reading? Does he decode words quite reliably (using phonics sounds he has learnt)?

Is he reliable with reading CVC words? Can he spell CVC words independently? (ie not after having learned them by rote!)

The other words on your DS’s list are a bit of a mix, and if he’s not confident with the above, I wouldn’t be attempting these (apart from perhaps ‘six’ and ‘stop’).

My friend’s DS struggled with spellings in Y1, and would initially only get 1 or 2 correct out of 10. His parents sensibly encouraged him to choose a few that he wanted to try each week, and helped him with those, little and often through the week, but not with too much pressure. Gradually, through the year, he was able to attempt more of them. They talked to the teacher about their approach and she was happy with this. He’s doing ok now in Y2.

Dolphinnoises · 25/01/2019 10:52

God almighty. My child is in Kindergarten (Y1) at an international baccalaureate school and goes out in the forest and cuts out snowflakes. There is definitely some maths (and a lot of German) but i’m shaky on what it is. And no homework at all throughout primary.

Original poster
ProzacDad · 25/01/2019 10:55

Hi LetitGoToRuin,

That's exactly the path I'm taking - he knows "air" for example so this week I'm concentrating on that and then he can get the words around that "under his belt" if you will.

air, fair, pair, stairs, chairs, hair, flair

Are those such words and hoping at least some of those come up on the test then he's going to at least score. The other words are pretty random which often throws him off learning ie "yellow" but I will add some of the others once we're happy and confident with those (probably - airport and repair for example).

Good news is that last night he came home with a triumphant 8/10 - it was a lot of hard work to get it so I'm chuffed to bits for him. The two he got wrong where "towel / towl" and "shower / chower" (I'm half thinking it was a c and not an s but that's splitting hairs, he did brill.). His previous best was 4.

Thanks to everyone who's replied and offered their ideas.

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Maldives2006 · 25/01/2019 21:24

Why should a 5 year old have to cut down on out of school activities and why does a 5 year old have 20 spellings words it’s crazy.

Yura · 31/01/2019 19:32

My oldeyt is in a high acievibg prep school , non selective with great results. we get

  • 12 words per week, nothinv too difficult. kids have to write each 4 times, its as much about handwriting as it is about spelling.
  • 3 reading books
  • 2 library books
we also get volutary fun tasks given per term, but the kids decide which ones they want to do (or not)
rc22 · 03/02/2019 21:00

I teach year 1. Those words are appropriate for year 1 but twenty in a week is rather a lot.

tomhazard · 04/02/2019 08:26

My DD is y1 - we are encouraged to do daily reading. They send spellings of the week home to practise but there is no test, they are assessed as they learn, not through summative tests age 5 or 6. This is an ofsted outstanding infant school.

Your homework schedule sounds excessive and stress inducing for such young children- I wouldn't be pleased with that.

SalrycLuxx · 04/02/2019 08:49

For my yr1 (private) we have:

10-12 spellings a week
One maths worksheet for the weekend
One but if creative writing for the weekend
Daily reading (10 mins)
Occasionally an extra worksheet relevant to the terms topic or weekly focus e.g. “think of words that could finish this rhyme”.

That’s all.

We’d never do 40 minutes mathletics. We dont have enough time in the day for that! (Even on days with no outside Clubs)